Disguised as a Hero to Get Past Your Borders
by Citizenjess
Summary: "If he's to be completely and utterly honest with himself, he's been avoiding Anakin since Ahsoka left." Obi-Wan and Anakin finally talk after "The Wrong Jedi."


I've had a lot of feels about the season five finale of Clone Wars in general, and I even ended up writing a couple of quick and dirty one-shots back when it first aired: In If I Should Call You Up, Invest a Dime (And You Say You Belong to Me, and Ease My Mind), Anakin receives some late-night correspondence from ~you-know-who; and then in Whisper in a Dead Man's Ear, It Doesn't Make It Real, Obi-Wan seeks out Ventress. What I specifically didn't tackle was an Obi-Wan-speaking-to-Anakin-about-Ahsoka-leaving story; Sarah actually wrote one a while back (and it's good!), but there's a distinct lack of avoidance on Obi-Wan's part, and I guess that's the sticking point for me, this idea that he would just feel so guilty about everything that's happened that he wouldn't be available to comfort Anakin immediately. Stuff like a GIFset from "The Wrong Jedi" by commandertano over on Tumblr really helped cinch it for me, and, well, here's my head-canon for Obi-Wan's head-space in 'fic form, meant to take place circa a week or so after the events of the season five finale.

Summary: "If he's to be completely and utterly honest with himself, he's been avoiding Anakin since Ahsoka left." Obi-Wan and Anakin finally talk after "The Wrong Jedi." Title comes from the Dresden Dolls' "Truce."

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**Disguised as a Hero to Get Past Your Borders**

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If he's to be completely and utterly honest with himself, he's been avoiding Anakin since Ahsoka left. They all have, really; there's little to say to make better all that's transpired - it won't bring her back, won't erase the hurt caused by what caused her to leave in the first place. He's tried to stave off the inevitable brushing of psyches once again in close quarters, the implication of a return to normalcy when, in fact, everything has been changed irrevocably. It's not until Ventress blows him off, however, that Obi-Wan realizes he can no longer avoid the inevitable; and so, he returns to his and Anakin's shared quarters with some resignation at an hour when he knows his former apprentice is likely to be home, squares his shoulders, and walks through the entrance into their living space proper.

Anakin looks up at him as he enters, looking strangely dwarfed in what amounts to Obi-Wan's favorite armchair. "Fancy seeing you here," he greets, but the expression and tone belie the emotions that have obviously been simmering for days. Immediately, Obi-Wan feels it: Guilt; anxiety over the pain he has caused Anakin, even inadvertently, because even if it doesn't look as though he has done anything even remotely useful, even if it appears, on the surface, as though he's failed Ahsoka just as much as Barriss Offee or the rest of the Jedi Council has, the awful truth is that he tried, and failed, and somehow, that makes it all so much worse.

"I'm glad you're home," Obi-Wan proposes, and it's not his usual cheerful self, nor does it respond directly to Anakin's remark, but, well, there's that pesky guilt again, keeping him from being able to come clean completely, to say what desperately needs to be said.

Unfortunately for him, Anakin does not seem to have any patience for his particular brand of avoidance. "Oh, I've been here," his once-Padawan assures him, and there's a swift undercurrent of anger to his words now. "I haven't been going out of my way to avoid coming home." He watches Obi-Wan watch him, and then notes with some satisfaction as his Master lowers his gaze, a sign that he's conceded Anakin's point. Still, the victory is hollow; he's needed his Master here, perhaps more than ever before, and Obi-Wan has all but admitted that that need is what has been keeping him away, lingering nearby, and yet just out of reach.

In contrast, he remembers how much of a presence Obi-Wan was after his disastrous first encounter with Count Dooku; even when Anakin pushed him away, sometimes all but literally, Obi-Wan stayed resolutely put, hovering at first to the point where Anakin felt smothered, and then, gradually, as they both learned their places anew, allowing Anakin to come into his own again, first with his new arm, and then as one of the youngest Knights in the Order. His Master's silence in the recent past, and even now, with Obi-Wan looking like he wants to turn tail and book it out the door again, or trudge miserably past Anakin's angry stare and into the room he inherited from Qui-Gon seemingly forever ago now, speaks volumes. That is, Obi-Wan presumes that Anakin doesn't need him anymore, or at least, wants to believe as such in order to assuage some of that damnable guilt, and now, here they are, with everything and nothing to say to one another, with Obi-Wan looking for all the world like he wants to be anywhere but here.

For a moment, it appears he might get his wish; and then, just as he begins to trod the short path to his private quarters, Anakin's voice, once more low and dangerous, cuts him off, effectively blocking his path. "Did you even care? She was practically your Padawan, too. Did it even bother you to watch her go? To know you couldn't stop her? To think that maybe she's better off away from all of this? DID YOU?" Anakin shouts when Obi-Wan still says nothing, and finally, his Master's ragged breath prequels the careful speechifying he's been waiting for.

"Of course I care, Anakin. I ... as you said, we both knew her from the very beginning. I saw how important she became to you, how much her success meant for your own, and I grew to love her quickly, the same way that I love you." Anakin blinks at this, caught off-guard by the rare candidness; Obi-Wan continues to look down, his voice made soft with the truth behind his words. It's humbling, but all the same, he's still so very angry. "Then why?" he asks, and they both know what he means. Obi-Wan takes another steadying breath and continues speaking.

"I know ... you do not think I tried to save her, Anakin," he says, and Anakin's eyes blaze as they watch every minute detail of his face, the same way they did after Obi-Wan returned from his subterfuge as Rako Hardeen, but before he had had the chance to relinquish the bounty hunter's face. Anakin's expression is possessive, now; Obi-Wan is his, it seems to say, his Master, regardless of the fact that his Padawan braid has been shorn, his personal representative to the Jedi Council, and he hasn't done his job properly, and so the brunt of Anakin's anger is his to bear. It's the way things have always been between them, Anakin lobbing unfair accusations at Obi-Wan for not trying harder, for not doing more in the face of pressure from the Council. It's not entirely true, he knows, but all the same, it's not untrue enough for him to find Anakin's targeting of his Master completely unwarranted.

And how: "But I promise you, I did try," he says, and now, his voice is very nearly a whisper. He knows Anakin has no knowledge of those terse in-Council sessions leading up to Ahsoka's trial; his former Padawan was too busy bringing the real perpetrator of the great crime against the Order and the Republic to justice, while Obi-Wan sat in a room and ... what, precisely? Looked like a petulant youngling with his jaw clenched while his elders fed him the same lines they always did about the Will of the Force and how, even though they welcomed debate, in the end, it really wasn't up to Obi-Wan whether or not Ahsoka Tano was given any benefit of the doubt whatsoever? Anakin couldn't know that he'd glanced shakily at each and every member of the Twelve at one point, his voice quietly authoritative. "Do I not know this child better than almost anyone?" he had asked, and it must have been effective, because even Master Windu had stood down and let Obi-Wan speak. "Is that not the reason I've been placed on the Council to begin with, to provide it with reports of Anakin's, and now, Ahsoka's, progress? Hasn't my role in the Order, ever since Qui-Gon Jinn died, been to simultaneously nurture the Chosen One, and yet, to keep him in line with Jedi ideals? Why then is my judgment only valuable when it's for the purposes of tattling, and never for the actual betterment of Anakin's status as a Jedi?"

It was an effective calling out; because for all of Anakin's zeroing in on Obi-Wan's guiltily dropped gazes, Obi-Wan garnered the same somewhat cruel satisfaction from watching Mace Windu look briefly away. All the same, this was the Council, and they were in the middle of a war, after all. "I understand your point, Obi-Wan." The darker man's voice rang with bold authority, even underscored by chagrin. "All the same, without stronger evidence against Padawan Tano's guilt, we can't very well tell the Chancellor that we just feel like she's innocent. That's not how a fair trial by the Republic works. In any case," he'd added then, and the stern mask had slid back into place as he'd steepled his fingers, "I might remind you that the Council heeded your advice about your former Padawan on a number of occasions, including whether or not to Knight him, or even to let him into the Order in the first place." It had been both a concession and a dismissal, and Obi-Wan, at a loss, save for outright defiance - which, of course, was Anakin's area of expertise, not his - had sat back, defeated, in his chair and waited for the inevitable crashing down of ideals all around them. Even Anakin's tackling Barriss Offee and forcing her to confess to her crimes had done little to uncinch the Council's dismissal of Ahsoka; he had foreseen her leaving, even on her terms, had noticed the polite defiance in the young Togruta's shoulders as Master Windu and Plo Koon had beckoned her back into the Temple with embarrassed hopefulness outlining their movements. "This was actually to be your great Trial," Windu had even said, and it had taken everything Obi-Wan had in him not to wince outright.

And now, here, facing Anakin at long last, the urge to wince is once again palpable, because his former apprentice's incredulous expression is no less damning than the careful inclining of the head that Ahsoka had granted them all before cradling her Padawan chain in Anakin's upturned hand and walking away from them all. "You tried," Anakin repeats quietly. "I'm sure you always try, Obi-Wan, but you know what Master Yoda says: Do or do not. If you don't succeed, you've failed. And Ahsoka's gone now, so I mean, I guess it's pretty obvious how far trying has gotten you, yeah?" There's nothing saying Obi-Wan shouldn't snap at Anakin for daring to speak to him like this; all the same, it's not really so different from Asajj telling him off for using her as part of this latest subterfuge, for not having the balls to finish what he started, and so he allows it. Not only that, but now the guilt is blossoming in his chest, expanding like the petals of a newly-bloomed desert flower, harsh and red and jagged across his heart. Not only does he allow it, then, but, well ...

"You're right." Anakin's gaze snaps up in surprise, not expecting the sheer defeat implied by Obi-Wan's tone, his slumped body language. And yet: "You're absolutely right, Anakin," his Master says, and now he's looking directly at his former Padawan, eyes bright and shining with a passion that Anakin presumed the war had all but stolen from him. "I did fail. I failed Ahsoka, and I failed Satine, and I failed Master Qui-Gon." Anakin starts to shake his head, to mouth the other man's name, to concede, but it's too late for any of that, it's too late to do anything except allow Obi-Wan to finish what he kept trying to start, because he's succeeded.

"But most of all, Anakin, I've failed you," Obi-Wan is saying now, "and I'm sorry for that." His eyes don't quite close before the first tears can slip down his cheeks, though Obi-Wan does a passable job of turning his head away so the moisture isn't quite so illuminated by the lamp light. "I'm so sorry, Anakin," he gasps again, and Anakin lurches out of his - Obi-Wan's, probably formerly Qui-Gon's, which is why Obi-Wan has always liked it so much - chair and crosses the room with urgent, quick footsteps. "Master," he says simply, and collects the now-sobbing man in his arms. They stay like that for some time - minutes, hours, it's hard to say - and Anakin's own tears nestle themselves along the crown of Obi-Wan's soft, reddish hair as they cling to one another the way they always have, the way they did scant days after Qui-Gon had died and Anakin missed his mom and Obi-Wan missed feeling like anything was ever going to be okay again, and the way they did when Anakin had finally stopped being so angry about the Rako Hardeen thing that he might have punched Obi-Wan for looking at him, and even the way they had when the stress of his dead mother and the disability caused by Dooku had gotten to be too much for the Order's precious Chosen One, and Obi-Wan had offered himself in both comfort and suppliance. He'd never said he was sorry in precisely the same way as he has just now, but he likes to think, judging by the way Anakin clutches him like a cherished lifeline, like a buoy in the sea of uncertainty that has colored the entire course of their shared lives, that Anakin forgives him his transgressions all the same.


End file.
